SpriteBuilder for Mac

A versatile yet simple to use Mac OS X application that allows for building Android and iOS 2D games using a powerful set of tools

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SpriteBuilder is a streamlined and open-source mobile 2D game development toolkit for building both iOS and Android games. It comes with support for Objective-C and uses an animation editor, localization tools and the Chipmunk and Cocos2d game development tools.

Working with SpriteBuilder is quite easy. As soon as you open the app, you will see 3 main panes displayed across the user interface: the resources pane, the timeline pane and the inspector pane. As you might imagine, the resources pane provides access to the project’s contents that you can click on to preview in the timeline.

Furthermore, the resources pane includes 4 different tabs for accessing the project files, the tileless editor, the node library and the warnings. From the tileless editor, you can browse various objects and drag and drop them to the project.

The great advantage of working with SpriteBuilder is the fact that you can build the code for just one game and then port it to both the Android and iOS platforms. On top of this, the app makes use of native APIs in the Objective-C programming language.

By accessing the inspector pane, you are able to configure numerous parameters that change based on the object you have clicked on in the previewer. You are able to change item properties, item code connections, item physics and the item templates.

SpriteBuilder provides various commands in its menus, such as aligning, moving, nudging, arranging or deselecting objects, zooming in documents, changing the stage border, inserting keyframes into animations and editing the timeline.

In a nutshell, SpriteBuilder is a mature mobile development platform that lets you build 2D games from top to bottom. The app is extensible, easy-to-use and supports a ton of tools like UI design, tieless editing, localization or sprite sheet generation.